Flight training commenced

Today I finally had my first practical flight lesson! During the weekend I had been really worried that I’d had to wait at least one day more, watching the weather forecasts talking about heavy rain the whole day. But when I arrived in Ljungbyhed on Monday morning, after a long journey by train departing Falun at 17:30 on Sunday, it wasn’t raining and there were even blue holes in the cloud cover. With careful hopefulness we walked to the hangar and started our weather briefing at 07:45. One of the Norwegian classes was also on the flight schedule and one of them showed everybody the latest weather forecast, the current weather report for the airport and some detailed charts of the area. The conclusion was that while the schedule for the Norwegian class was cancelled, our class would probably be okay. Since the experienced Norwegians were supposed to do solo flights without any instructor in the plane they had harsher weather limits than us.

Using four planes, the class was divided into three groups flying at different times. I was scheduled for the first round, why I directly after the weather briefing had a personal briefing with my instructor. Since not much is expected of us during the very first flight the briefing was quite informal and didn’t take much time. We went to the airplanes outside the hangar and did a “pre-flight check”, which means walking around the airplane checking that everything looks ok. This is done quite carefully and I will need to know all of it by heart later. Inside the cabin we followed a checklist testing the instruments and checking that they give correct values about the oil, fuel etc. After checking that everything is as it should be my instructor asks for clearance (permission) to taxi (drive on the ground) towards the runway from the airport tower. We taxi to the holding point (queue line) and receive clearance to take off on runway 29R (there are two active runways in Ljungbyhed). On the runway we follow yet another checklist before my instructor gives full throttle and we take off.

Around airports you must usually follow strict rules about what routes you may take and what altitudes you may fly at. And before take-off and landing approach you report what route of the few available ones you wish to take and the tower then (hopefully) gives its permission. We flew mostly straight ahead (to the west) after take-off passing a certain checkpoint at the airport area border and then continued in the same direction until we were slightly north of Helsingborg on the west coast. The view was great seeing the rural landscape, the city, the sea and also the Danish coast on the other side of the narrow strait. When we arrived to this area the instructor let me control the airplane for the first time. I did some turns, ascends and descents for a short while. The instructor showed how to practice engine failure procedure by putting the engine to idle, check the area for a suitable emergency landing spot, and then approach it and prepare for landing. At a few hundred meters altitude the practice is completed and we ascend again giving full throttle.
   

We head back towards Ljungbyhed finding the correct approach route and receiving clearance from the tower. We do a traffic circuit (flying in a rectangle just before landing) and land safely on the same runway we started from. We taxi back to the hangar, park and exit the airplane for the debriefing.

The goal of the first flight was basically to learn the basic procedures of a complete flight, feel the controls a little and learn how to orientate on the map by watching the landscape. It didn’t feel too complicated even though there are a lot more to think about compared to driving a car for example. However it was extremely fun and I’m greatly looking forward to tomorrow and the rest of the week. If the weather doesn’t get worse we’ll hopefully do one flight lesson a day the whole week.

Looking back on last week, we had theory classes as usual until Thursday after lunch, classes ending at 14:20. I wanted to celebrate midsummer festival back home in Dalarna so I took the bus from Ljungbyhed, transferred to another bus in Klippan and then took the train from Hässleholm to Stockholm, and finally another train to Uppsala. I left my home at 15:00 and arrived to my apartment in Uppsala (which I still haven’t moved out from) at around 23:20, so it was a long trip… In the morning of midsummer eve, Friday, I took the final train to Falun in the morning (2 hours trip) and after a short break in Falun I went with friends to Leksand where we joined more people and celebrated midsummer at probably the best place you could do it. The weather was great and we were ten people eating traditional lunch, walking around the town, joining the maypole raising ceremony and finally doing barbeque at a campsite by the lake. During the rest of the weekend I met some more friends and of course my family before returing back to Ljungbyhed by night train Sunday to Monday.

Photos:

I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures from my flight lesson and I don’t think there will be any opportunities soon to use the camera when flying either, but in the future I promise I’ll take pictures!

 

Here are instead two pictures from the midsummer festival in Leksand. There were probably over 15 000 people attending the main event, which would be more than the entire population of Leksand municipality.

Here’s a promotion video for TFHS, very cheesy but yet fun to watch. The airplane I flew today was the small type that appears the most in the video. Enjoy!

Nollning and barbeque

Another week at school is over. Now we’ve had our first class in all theory subjects for this semester. The new subjects this week have been:

• Physical education
• Principles of flight
• Radio communication

During the first class of physical education we talked about the course in general, about sports facilities in Ljungbyhed (there are more than you would think) and we were shown the gym inside the High School (neighboring our school). Principles of flight is basically a physics course where we learn how an airplane flies in detail and what happens if the speed is too low (“stall”) etc. Radio communication is naturally about how pilots should speak on the radio to each other and to the air traffic control (tower).

Since errors in radio communication are the cause of many accidents it is of course important that we speak loud and clear, correctly using the right words and that we speak the same language. While we are automatically assumed to know Swedish as needed, we will do tests to check that our English skills are adequate. About the pilot in the below Youtube-clip, one really wonders if he passed his English examination…

We will have one more week of theory studies before they will let us up to the air, and of course we’re all really thrilled about it. In the beginning the flight instructor will control much of the flight including take-off and landing but gradually we will take over all parts and hopefully, if we’re lucky about the weather, we may do our first solo flight later this fall (October or so). When we’ve finished the programme, we’ll begin intensive training to catch up with the abilities of Mr. Hoover in this Youtube-clip (don't miss the part from 2:10):

Haha, just joking…

Last weekend we were zeroed (nollade) by last year’s class, which was fun and they totally surprised us not suspecting anything. Today, we had a barbeque with all students and teachers at the school, which was also really nice. And in addition to the good food and welcome speeches etc. we were treated with an unadvertised air-show by one of the veteran flight instructors in an old biplane. He did loops, rolls, combinations of both right above our heads and then landed on the grass right in front of the hangar and our tables.

By the way, in the school right now there are around 50 students, of whom half are Swedish TFHS students belonging to Lund University, and half are Norwegian students belonging to the University of Tromsö (UiT) in the far north of Norway. Norwegian students will be in Ljungbyhed at least until early next year because their own university still doesn’t have the necessary certification for a pilot school. Last year’s TFHS class will also stay here until early next year, when they will move to Stockholm or another city with a major airport to do their Type Rating training – which means learning how to control a passenger airplane (like Boeing 737, Fokker 50 or something in between).

Photos:

The common room has been busy during evening this week, especially during Sweden’s matches. A shame our team is so bad (mostly)…

 

Views from central Ljungbyhed.

 

From the school barbeque with the airplane that certainly did an impressive arrival.

First week report

Hello again! Now my first week here in Ljungbyhed has come to an end. I’ve had my first class in most theoretical subjects during the week:

• Navigation 
• Aircraft general knowledge
• Air law and operational procedures
• Meteorology
• Flight planning and performance

Navigation is mainly about reading maps in order to calculate our heading and the distance to our destination. Aircraft general knowledge is about the physical properties of the aircraft and its wings –how it flies and so on. Air law is of course about “traffic regulations” in air. Flight planning includes a lot of math calculating required fuel, how the wind affects speeds, the stall speed (when the plane stops flying because of low speed) at different weights and much more.
  

This far the theory has been really interesting and fun. While I never could concentrate the full 90 minutes of a lecture in physics I have had no problems listening during the 6 hours of class every day excluding breaks. Of course I hope it will stay that way.

On Wednesday last week it was the Swedish national day, so we were free. I just had a calm day unpacking more of my stuff in my room, washing my clothes etc. I also finished my Japanese course that was supposed to end last week, which feels relieving. However, I still have to finish my physics programme graduation thesis report…

On Friday after school I went to Malmö with my cousin Sofia to attend my second cousin Alice’s high school graduation party. There were lots of people, most of whom I didn’t know at all, but it was fun, the food was great and the place was a really nice one. We stayed the night and after having done some shopping of Japanese food ingredients in central Malmö on Saturday noon I was given a ride back to Ljungbyhed while my cousin continued to the north to her home in Jönköping.

In the afternoon I and five classmates walked a few kilometers to the local aviation club. Since the airport is fairly large the aviation club is also big and there were a few people there who gave us information about the club, their planes and so. The club has nothing to do with the school, except it uses the same runways, but probably some of us including me will become member there later in order to be able to fly privately when we have our certificates.

The airplanes owned by the school can’t be used outside school activities, but of course our certificates will make it possible for us to rent a plane at any aviation club in Sweden. Renting a four-seated aircraft in Ljungbyhed apparently costs around 1000 SEK per hour, so now you know how much money to prepare if you want to get a ride with me later on ;) . By the way, it’s completely possible to rent less than one hour and only time with the engine running counts.

 

I should work on my graduation thesis… See you soon!

Photos:

 

A Saab 91 Safir, old military training aircraft. Now used by the aviation club for advanced flying (rolls, loops etc.).

The club has a Diamond DA-40 and two Piper PA-28 that both takes 4 passengers. I will probably choose to learn flying one of those.

Matriculation at TFHS

Hej, efter att ha funderat en hel del på om jag verkligen ska skriva en blogg eller inte, och på vilket språk jag ska skriva, så har jag tillslut beslutat att skriva ändå, fast på engelska. Detta med förhoppningen att fler kompisar ska läsa helt enkelt. Jag ber om ert överseende!

Welcome! This is my first submission to my web log about my studies at Lund University: School of Aviation (Trafikflyghögskolan, TFHS), with the aim to become an airline pilot in the future. The course spans about 2½ years between June 4th 2012 and January 23th 2015 and the goal of the course is to acquire a technical bachelor’s degree and pilot licenses of the type PPL for flying small airplanes privately and MPL for flying commercially.

While most of you probably know me well, I will introduce myself for other visitors, if any. My name is Daniel Andersson, I’m 24 years old and born in Falun in Sweden. I studied natural science in high school, then I’ve studied Japanese for 2 years at Dalarna University and physics for 3 years at Uppsala University. I’ve studied in Japan two times one year each as an exchange student. I do skydiving and play video games in my free time.

While my future plans did not include working as a pilot at all until quite recently, about a year ago, by a chance I remembered the School of Aviation (from here on I’ll call it TFHS) when thinking about in September last year what courses I want to take during the coming spring. I had heard about it as a high school student from friends who intended to apply for it, however I wasn’t especially interested then, because I wanted to be a famous scientist. But in fall last year, my scientist dream had already faded after finding out that physics wasn’t for me as exciting I thought it would be, and also that working as a researcher (and the way there) is much tougher than I had imagined.

While my first thought was that I’d probably never be accepted, because of the high popularity, I decided to apply just in case, and for fun. After three rather tough sets of entrance exams over 200 applicants were reduced to 12 admitted students and to my great surprise and joy, I was one of them. The first exam was a written exam in Lund (southern Sweden) consisting of various parts testing our memory, simultaneous capacity, logical thinking etc. The second exam after half of the examinees were selected was held in Stockholm (convenient for me living in Uppsala) and consisted of a group work task, and a memory and simultaneous capacity test on a computer. Before the third exam half of the remaining examinees were again selected, and this time we were interviewed by a teacher and a psychologist.

I got my acceptance letter on March 29th, and after that I had to undertake an exhaustive medical examination, which I did in Lund a few weeks later. While they tested a lot of things, it only took a few hours but cost me about 6600 SEK… On May 8th I finally got a positive result from the medical examination and all obstacles were cleared, while I was an additional 3000 SEK poorer for the license related paperwork. On June 3rd, after having tried my best to finish my other studies in beforehand (in vain), I moved from Sweden’s 4th largest city Uppsala to the tiny village of roughly 2000 inhabitants Ljungbyhed in northern Skåne county.

On Monday June 4th (yesterday) we had an introduction day for the school where we got lots of information and could see and test sit the two types of airplanes that we will pilot during the 1½ year long part of the course actually at TFHS in Ljungbyhed. Today, on Tuesday June 5th, we had our first ordinary school day with theory classes in flight navigation and general knowledge about airplanes. Already in three weeks from now, around June 25th most of us will manoeuvre an aircraft for the first time. I look forward to it infinitely!

About the schedule – we will have a three weeks short summer break in July but otherwise we have class continuously until Christmas, and during summer and fall (not winter) we will have lots of practical flight lessons on dedicated “flight weeks” together with theory classes on “theory weeks”. Our first exams will be in the middle of September.

In spring next year we are supposed to acquire our PPL (Private Pilot License) and then we are free to, for example, hire an airplane in an aviation club and fly whenever we want. In fall next year we will finish our ATP (Airline Transport Pilot) theory and starting that winter we will learn how to fly one specific commercial airliner (=airplane). After that, during the last 4 months or so of the course, we will have an internship at an airline using the type we’ve learnt and actually work as a first officer (=co-pilot, styrman, andrepilot). Then we will graduate and have to find jobs, which can be really tough in this industry.

By the way, while we actually were supposed to be informed about what type of airplane we will learn to fly, and which airline we will do the internship at, it’s unfortunately not decided yet. Hopefully it will be decided in a few months. Probably our class will be split into two parts belonging to different airlines with different airplane types, and the probability is high that one of those airlines will be Norwegian (who mainly has Boeing 737s), but I have no idea about the other one. The reason for this delay is that City Airline went bankrupt recently (as a subsidiary of Skyways), and a bunch of students at TFHS belonged to them. These airlines are called “host-airlines” of TFHS.

Please write a comment if you like, or have questions!

Photos:

 

My room in Ljungbyhed. A really nice student corridor building only for pilot students (at the moment around 40 people including two Norwegian classes). The school is located 50 meters away, and the airplane hangar around 500 meters away. I can see the planes really close coming in for landing from my window.

Ljungbyhed airport has four runways, of which two are in use (11L/29R and 11R/29L). However only private and educational flying.

 A Cirrus SR-20, the plane we will fly during most of our practical training here at TFHS.

 

A Piper PA-31, the plane we will fly a little during the last part of our practical training here at TFHS.